RockPopandRoll

Rockpile: Do You Know This Band? / Ep. 55

Rockpile?  The band?  How were they well-known in roots rock music circles and not so much with radio listeners and album buyers?  Or were they, and we just didn't realize it?
Rockpile began as the name of the first solo album by Dave Edmunds, released in 1972. Edmunds plays almost all the instruments except for bass and backing vocals, The album included a 1970 single, "I Hear You Knocking" - a #1 song in Britain
He billed his band as Dave Edmunds and Rockpile.  It eventually included  Edmunds (vocals, guitar), Nick Lowe (vocals, bass guitar), Billy Bremner (vocals, guitar), and Terry Williams (drums)
In their heyday, Rockpile recorded enough material for five studio albums, though only one (Seconds of Pleasure) was released under the Rockpile name. 
Tracks on Wax 4, Repeat When Necessary, and Twangin' - all Dave Edmunds solo albums- were released under his name. One more (Labour of Lust) was released as a Nick Lowe solo album. 
And then there was the great lost classic Seconds of Pleasure.  
We explore the music Edmunds made as his own, but actually with that Rockpile band. We discover some Nick Lowe (with Rockpile and without -sort of).  We tear into some post-Rockpile music from both artists, weave in how they may have influenced early Elvis Costello, and find a Huey Lewis and the News story, too.
Rockpile. It's a bumpy road worth the journey.  Let go.
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website: www.rockpopandroll.com
 

First Listen: New Bryan Adams Music / Ep. 54

Here's my background. Love Bryan Adams. He did "Cuts Like a Knife", one of the great rock tracks of eighties radio. "Straight from the Heart", one of the great ballads of rock radio, and the windows down, summertime, turn it up loud, catch a little buzz, rock and roll of Reckless.
His eighties work is the foundation. And then he went into the nineties and worked with Mutt Lange and had a huge album. And then worked on some soundtracks, went ballad-heavy, and then lost his way.
Now I saw him live, would have been 1987.  The Hooters opened. It was Joe Louis Arena. So it was the, you know, 17,000. Great show.
Saw him in Indianapolis  - 2007-ish. And it was really good Bryan Adams has always been good live. He has a 2025 tour of Europe planned.
Now he has new music. And I've been so disappointed with Bryan Adams music over the past 30 years.  Never a great lyricist - he's not Springsteen. He's not Petty. But the the banging eighties guitar, drums, whiskey-soaked voice played loud - that's Bryan Adams. That is his sweet spot, and and he had lost that. Shyper-generic and not great fun - to me anyway.
But he's come back with some new music. It's a first listen for me.  Hadn't heard it yet.
We're gonna hear it together. We're gonna I'm gonna react to it, and we'll see what we see what I think. What does it do for me? For you?  A single called Roll With the Punches was released in February. That's gonna be the name of the album due to come out sometime in 2025. And then he has released a second single in March He's working again with Mutt Lange.
Let's see what this sounds like.    may stop it as we're getting through part of it. What do we think? So this is the brand new single. It's called "Make Up Your Mind".  Let's turn it up and listen together.  
And then I found a couple of added surprises. :)
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website: www.rockpopandroll.com
 
 

Aerosmith: The 80's (Mostly) and Beyond / Ep. 53

Examine the post-1970's output of Aerosmith, because the path that they traveled was unlike how things usually and eventually play out in a career in a rock band. What was it, really?
There's roughly three stages to the Aerosmith career:  First, a nearly decade-long run in the 1970s as a party, blues-rocking, Stones-emulating live band with rock radio stone-cold classics.
Secondly, a late 1970s into the early 1980s drug-hazed, hit-empty period that caused a fallout that cost them both guitar players, with the grind stretching into 1985 with a less-than-great ("Done With Mirrors") comeback album.
Then, for the third act, "Walk This Way" exploded with Run D.M.C., and the band kept-a-rollin' for nearly 25 more years.
Lots of music from the "Pump" album onward.  Let's re-examine what it really was.  Or at least what I think it was, and you be the judge.  Agree.  Or nope.Just like always.  Let's go.
It's a good reason to look at some Aerosmith nuggets on Rock Pop and Roll. 
 
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Making Sense of Billy Idol - Ep. 52

Is Billy Idol a couple of hits and not much else? Is his career more than the peak "Rebel Yell", "White Wedding", and "Dancing With Myself"?
Surprises?  I found some. The hits?  Fewer than you might think.
He did have four top ten songs, but even they aren't what you might think initially.  But he had some tunes that weren't big but did rock. We dig into a couple of those.
Was he a pioneer in blending punk attitude with mainstream rock and pop appeal, bringing a sneering, rebellious edge of punk to MTV?  Or was he a jump-on-the-bandwagon pop-punker?
Some might argue that his music was more about style and image than deep artistic innovation, especially compared to more groundbreaking punk and new wave artists. If someone values raw, underground punk over polished rock, they might see him as more of a commercialized version of the genre.
I'm not so sure.
Embrace the sneer.  Let's go.
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website: www.rockpopandroll.com
 

Ep. 51: What About The Hooters?

Radio friendly, some heartland authenticity, and a bit of Philly attitude. 
Remember The Hooters?
“I don’t think we really fit into the ‘80s mold,” said lead singer and guitarist Eric Bazilian. “But we sure do show up on a lot of ‘80s playlists. If anything, I think we were a ‘70s band who had survived into the ‘80s.”
And you can hear a little in the first album - their major label release Nervous Night.
In the United States, they had three decent hits off that album. In 1985, the band played at the Live Aid benefit concert in Philadelphia In Europe, the Hooters had success with singles in Germany, Ireland, UK, Germany, Belgium Netherlands.
But not everyone liked them. Quotes online like “sub-Springsteen pop rock”, “reggae-inflected hokum” or “split the difference between Bruce and U2, wipe clean any trace of personality, and you’ve got The Hooters”.  Ouch.
But hear me out. it was enthusiastic and earnest, and they wanted to rock a bit.  “And We Danced” - that’s their signature sound. But how did The Hooters find success, and what’s up now? 
Well, let’s dive in.
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website: www.rockpopandroll.com
 

Ep. 50: My 45's - The 16 That Mattered Most

This is the 50th episode of Rock, Pop, and Roll.  In honor, here are, of the 100's of 45's I owned, the 16 that I think shaped my musical journey.
It's what resonated. The building blocks of what I liked.  Straight emotion - with no judgment of what was cool.
 It's what made me move.  Made me think and feel stuff I didn't quite yet understand.  Bubble gum. Rock of the 50s and 60s. Some 70s country.  A lot of hits.  A few that weren't.  And records I bought because I heard them on AM radio.
Really, it's the 16 songs that shaped what I would like for the rest of my life.
Come along for the ride.
Rob
email: rockpopandrollpodcast@gmail.ocm
website: www.rockpopandroll.com
 

Ep. 49: Hall and Oates - How Many Albums Were Actually Great?

Daryl Hall and John Oates made lots of albums.  And had a strong run of early hit singles."Wait For Me""Sara Smile""She’s Gone""Rich Girl"What was the Hall & Oates heyday? The string of albums that they created at their career pop-rock apex?  It came in the 1980's: Voices. Private Eyes. Big Bam Boom. Rock and Soul Part 1.  Maybe even Live at the Apollo.  
Were they great albums?
Early on, as artists tend to do, Hall & Oates had trouble clearly defining their sound, alternating among folk, soul, rock, and pop. 
None of their early albums—Whole Oats, Abandoned Luncheonette, and War Babies—were big sellers.  A single would hit but not album traction on the charts - meaning the LP's were not big sellers.
"She's Gone" off Abandoned Luncheonette was covered by Lou Rawls and Tavares, the latter version reached #1 on the R&B chart in 1974.
Their first album for RCA, Daryl Hall & John Oates contained "Sara Smile", which hit #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in June 1976. Old label Atlantic then re-released "She's Gone", which reached #7 in October 1976. Abandoned Luncheonette hit #33 on the album charts on November 20, 1976, and stayed on for 38 weeks.
Bigger Than Both of Us (1976) had a second single, "Rich Girl", that became Hall and Oates' first #1 hit in  March 1977.
A couple more top 20 singles.  But it really wasn't the Hall and Oates we would know in the 1980's.
They ended up building a fantastically successful body of work and career.  The biggest-selling duo in rock history. Radio singles. Lots of radio music.
But are there two albums and a half H&O albums that do really rock?  Or pop-rock?  Or are a 9 or 10 on the scale of "Is that a great album"? 
I thought I knew - I always think I know. But maybe I was wrong. 
We did some research and lots of listening to remind us of what it was. Take a podcast ride on the RockPopandRoll and Hall & Oates Philly Express soul/pop/R&B train and see what station  -  great albums or no - is the destination. 
Email Rob at rockpopandrollpodcast@gmail.com
Website: www.rockpopandroll.com
 
 

Ep. 48: Simple Minds: Before and After The Breakfast Club

The rise and slide of the Simple Minds - one of the most successful and influential bands in the UK during the 1980s. A mix of new wave, post-punk, and rock. Multiple UK Top 10 hits. But it took "Don't You (Forget About Me)" to break them big in the US.  They rode that stand-alone single into one hit album here in the States.
When Once Upon a Time was released in 1985 - without "Don’t You" on it. "Alive and Kicking" was the lead single - essentially the band’s 2nd American single. It went to #3 on the Billboard charts.
The album went platinum in the US. Then they fell from those rock and roll heights while continuing to make albums for the next 30 years, just as they had been working years to gain their audience, gigging since the late 1970s.
They suffered from a comparison to U2; Both bands from outside the US. Both had a big, expansive, anthemic sound, and both were socially and politically conscious in their lyrics. But there were differences too.
We talk about the climb. The slide. The U2 thing. We listen to the music they made early and late in their career.  And they are still doing their thing, still big in Europe.  What's going on?  
Hear all the episodes, get contact info, show notes and more at  rockpopandroll.com
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Ep. 47: Play Me 5 - Bryan Adams

We play just five songs from an artist's catalog - from all the albums, the singles, the live albums. The music game is called "Play Me 5".
Can we hear a band or performer in five songs, and find the reason - a bit of the understanding - as to why they are who they are and why they matter in the rock and roll continuum? 
That’s it.  Let's go. This episode, it is Bryan Adams.  
Why does Adams, a rock and roll singer from Canada, have a place in rock and roll history?  Or does he? Reckless was a huge album.  Cuts Like a Knife had a pretty good pop/rock/heartland vibe too. Five songs. That's the rule.  Agree or disagree as you please.
Five songs that do two things:
1. Give a representation of the artist - the musician - the band - the singer. 
2. Find songs that reveal a bit of the magic of the performance or the musicians.  Or both.
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Ep. 46: A New Springsteen Fan Who Just Saw Him in Concert for the First Time

This episode is a conversation with a 30-something Bruce fan who came to Bruce Springsteen's career only recently. We talk with Brandon Fitzsimmons, who started his journey with Springsteen during the downtime he had during COVID in 2020.  He did a deep dive into Springsteen's catalog, and most interesting to me, just saw Bruce for the first time at a show in Pittsburgh in the fall of 2024, driving 6 hours to see a 74-year old Springsteen and the E St. Band.  What was that like?  We talk about it, and how Brandon started - and went all in - in his Boss journey.
Brandon is a big music fan, albeit one who has deeper fandom for most things 90, and post-2000's.  He's a great person to talk to because he has both an open mind about music styles and also loves rock and roll.